Mike Minutes Mastermind 03/25/2025

All right ladies and gentlemen, welcome to their mic minutes. Mastermind to get the party on the road, quick update. It won't really affect anyone till next week and that is.

One second here. I didn't make a note here. Meeting.

Sorry.

Next week we are going to be having where we are going to clean up everyone's templates, automations, etc. It's been over five years now inside of a guestination and there are people that still have old, old templates. So Ryan painted brought this to me because he has five locations he's been able to see as he sets up each account, the fact that things change, updates to templates, etc. Which is great but we never have actually gone through and actually updated every single account. So we are going to have an initiative at command center. They can do it for you and you can opt out of it if you like. Hey, I don't know, I don't want anything changed, I don't want anything. I have customized a lot of stuff. You'll be able to opt out of it, but we will also have a video if you want to do it yourself.

And from top to bottom, every single template making it much more focused on email deliverability, upgrading the logo to the much more modern version that is on everyone's trucks, taking out a lot of formatting things like rows, columns, banners and borders and just really simplifying it to improve email deliverability as well as automations refining those casing out old versions of old documents and.

Adding in a couple automations as well around where to ask for reviews. There's several options and adding more text in. So there's gonna be a bunch of changes, there will be a video, there will be four to five weeks where you can opt out of said template update or just do it yourself and then just opt out. So next week though I will have a document of the different changes that will becoming and again nothing really changing in terms of workflow. It's just a matter of improving the templates on email and text, updating the automations, cleaning out old stuff that are old templates and old designs, old versions of documents, and then even cleaning out old bundles. Inside of Copilot Marketplace there's a whole bunch of bundles that we've added as time goes on and we update stuff. However, we need to go back and clean those out and then just get everyone on the same playing field, same logos, same templates, same designs, improving the email deliverability, et cetera. So.

The older your location is, the likely the older your templates are and so we just want to make sure everyone's up to date on the same page. And what we will likely do is every single year do this. So that way as we add new stuff. So for example, like Christmas light stuff we added last year, we add different templates and update. We would just every single year have a new bundle. Everyone would be brought up to speed. And then if you wanted to save that extra, you know, 15, 20 minutes, that command center would do it. You could always just do it yourself. And so more details on that next week we will show all the templates and what changes are making are happening. It'll be a lengthy training video walking through every single step. If you want to do it yourself and if you don't want to do it, we will have four to five weeks before then Command center would step in and do it for every single account, just so everyone's brought up to speed. And this is something that we would do then on an annual basis just to ensure that we can keep things clean. Inside of the bundles of Marketplace, we don't have multiple versions, we don't have old logos, we don't have old images and things are really kept tight. So thank you to Ryan for bringing that to my attention and submitting that to Command Center. And he, he kind of gets that insight because he's been now five locations across four years or whatever it's been to be able to see, hey, they're like multiple versions across and we haven't ever gone back and cleaned out the old stuff. So we will be doing that. And like I said, more details in that next week I will show what all those changes are going to be inside the templates. You can do it yourself or you can opt out and just not not have commands and do it at all. For you, that's totally fine, but we really just need to standardize it across the system and get rid of all the old junk, old templates, old versions, etc. So more details on that next week. And just like we did.

There'Ll be four to six weeks of time before that. You can opt out and do it yourself if you'd like. Otherwise then Command center would come in behind and clean everyone's accounts up.

Alrighty folks, let's jump into questions. Looks like we have six questions today.

Let me change this over to there. Very good, very good. First one up is from pasql. What's the difference between those who invest in Copilot? I guess longer on social media in the spring versus those invest in the fall. There is no difference. It's a matter of we are raising a certain amount and when that fund closes, it closes. I do have pretty good inclinations going to probably end sooner than September, but again, we have. We're not quite ready for everyone to actually start investing the money. As soon as we are available, I will let everyone know. You'll get an email from Carter to be able to set that up as well as I will keep everyone informed as we get closer to the limit. So if you do want to invest, you can. I'm not super mad about this being delaying a little bit because I don't want people actually putting money in right now when the end of the round is later, like in in. I don't want anyone in a rush to be putting money in. So right now, spring rush is here. You can spend the money on that. And this is the whole reason why we delayed the round into the fall. So that way people are not cash strapped during spring rush. So all of that to say there will be no difference between someone who invests immediately and the person that invests over the next few months as long as the fund is still open and we haven't hit the full amount we want to invest. So again, go to the Invest tab. If that's all Chinese to you, just go in the Invest tab. Invest in a gustination tab on the dashboard. Coach Connor. So putting myself out there, but looking for your critique photos attached on the C suite. You and Lee were talking about zone training with your heart rate. I think you said you were looking for how long someone can stay in 4 and 5 zone. Zone 4 and 5. When exercising, I floated between 4 and 5 or 85% of the race. And I honestly felt great until about mile 11. I had a hard time sleeping for like the next two days. Not sure if I just put my body in shock or what, but had a great experience for my first long distance rates overall. But outside looking in, what are your tips, critiques or comments based on the performance? Should I spend more time in a specific zone or less? So first off, Coach Connor, Connor Stead, very good. Got his first long distance. I think it was a half marathon if I'm not mistaken. So let's go ahead and see what these are at. Let's see here. Share this tab. Yeah. Half a marathon. Let's go. Okay, so the total time is 2 hours and 45 minutes. Calories, average pace per mile. Got it. Okay, cool. So, you know, I think personally I really like trying to increase the.

The, the average pace under 10 minutes. That'd be really, really phenomenal. And then that would be. Get more your, your total time around like two, two hours and 15 minutes. That'd be a good goal. Now beats per minute is kind of high. You're like 30.

Like your, your beats per minute is very high. One second, let me, let me just go back here one second to 220. Okay. You're like 30. So 30. That's not crazy. It's not insane. Like 190 is probably like your max heart rate. So like. But you're kind of pushing it. So probably honestly I would, if I looked at this, I would probably. And I would guess that someone that did this would be. Hadn't trained a ton for the, yeah, exacto, you're in zone five a ton. Um, and for that period of time, yeah, your body's gonna go into shock. So this, this would just come down to more training and being like, as you, as you have a heart, do more cardio. Your heart rate can come down when you are doing long periods of running. And so ideally what I'd be looking for is like, what percentage is zone five? The more and more you can get into zone four, you're just gonna feel better. Like it's not gonna feel as bad, but your heart is just not strong enough. Cause like the training hasn't been there. But as you do more training, I think the percentage of from in zone five should really, really decrease. In long distance running at a 12 minute mile, like I think you can get this down to, you know, 15, 20%. And if you're in zone four, you're gonna feel better. Like when you're this long in zone 5, I. E. Max heart rate essentially within that, you know, within essentially 10% of your maximum. So to determine your maximum, an easy way to do it is 220 beats per minute minus your age. So let's just say you're 30. Your max heart rate is really around 190. If you start eclipsing that, you literally can't last more than a several sec, like usually less than a minute. And that's like high intensity interval training will hit you up against your max heart rate. And that's why you can only do it for short periods of time, 30, 60 seconds. If you're doing in this range, which is within 10% of essentially your max heart rate, you are pushing it like your heart is working hard. Um, so this would come down to just based on my quick analysis, you're like more training, doing this more often gets your heart. You'll be of a lower heart rate during the training itself. Um, but congrats, man. All of that to say. Congrats. Crushed it. Super proud of you, dude.

Yeah, it's awesome, man. Dakota, where? Sorry, Would we be able to alter our CC over the phone estimate Excel spreadsheet to sell monthly maintenance services over the phone? Hedging, weeding, debris cleanup. Do we see a monthly maintenance instant quote option for our websites in the future? So.

I'm not going to attack this one this year. And that is property cleanups, instant pricing or over the phone. There are a lot of variables. Like for example, you could say.

Here'S the thing, you could do permanent pricing. The problem with this is the number starts to get very large because a big overgrown cleanup could take 16 hours. There are very few overgrown lawns that take 16 hours to mow. And so the numbers start to get very large in terms of, well, this charge per minute per man or something like that. For property cleanup, the number gets so big, it's very difficult from a pricing perspective as well as scheduling. Like it's very difficult to schedule a property cleanup on the schedule without seeing it and knowing if it's going to be a three hour cleanup or is this going to be a 32 hour cleanup because the pot is completely overgrown. There's trees coming out, massive shrubs overgrown. The lawns are like, it can just be so much variety. So it would really mess up schedules if like tomorrow in your schedule you have a first time, you know, cleanup to dry. It was over the phone and it was sold at a permanent rate. Great. It's a Friday, all of your crew is busy and you're like, okay, four hours, great. You show up and it's a 40 hour cleanup. Like it just so much variety. Whereas for mowing, you might show up and there might be a job that takes four hours, but you're not going to show up to a 40 hour MO typically. So that that's the problem with that one that I have. It really could mess up someone's scheduling if you're doing instant pricing or over the phone pricing. Is it off the table? No. Do I think that this will get better and better as the satellite imaging gets better, street view gets better and the street view gets closer in terms of time. But doing a property cleanup based upon two years ago, an image from the street is going to be completely irrelevant because they could literally not just, you know, service the property past six months. The place is completely overgrown now. So it's just too difficult. There's variability with lawns but it's just not where it could 10x your day.

Usually, like an overgrown lawn might double or triple your time maybe. And we're looking at an hour, two hours extra, so an extra $150. But property claims are just so wide. It's horrible from a scheduling perspective to be like, yes, this property could take you anywhere from one hour to 40 hours. Whereas for mowing, it's like, look, it's going to take somewhere between half an hour and maybe two hours even at the worst case scenario. So it's a little bit more constrained there. I'm not opposed to this, though. It's not on, it's not on the immediate cards. But down the road, as we get better instant pricing. And even this, this year I'm really focused on like getting the card information, doing snow instant pricing, that's like my big focus for the off season. Having the winter services now being instant pricing from the website, that would be a big focus. But things like leaf cleanup, bush trimming, I'll probably chip away at those things before we ever like, all right, property cleanups. So there's several things that have ideas about this. And I'm also waiting for, yeah, a couple things. Technologically, technologically, if everyone had a phone.

There'S a few video processing tools that could potentially be useful. But again, it's like, is someone going to do it? Is someone going to submit videos of their property, etc. The drop off is just too much right now. So, Mr. Anonymous, should I be running Facebook ads if I only have 1500 dollars to spend? If not, what is the recommended amount to spend? Even make this advertising avenue worthwhile. Look, you can look, think about like this.

If I was selling leads to you for $40 cost per lead, and you're like, well, I only have, you know, 500amonth. Okay.

Now let's increase your budget to $5,000 a month. But now the leads cost $80 cost per lead. Well, this is the thing. You should probably expend the $500 first at the lower cost per lead. And that's how it is with ads. Because if you only have a $5 a day budget, that's gonna be the most efficient use of that fund, of those funds, versus the 95th 200th dollar, that $5 not efficient as the first $5. So I, I, you know, $50 a day is substantial, substantial on Facebook ads. I don't think you need that much. I would be very careful. I'd watch the video we talked about yesterday. Yesterday's mastermind so 0324 I'd watch that one, make sure I have tons of variations being ran and even if you put 10 or 15 per day behind that, you'll start to see something. If you got one lead a week, that wouldn't be horrible. If you got one lead a day, that'd be phenomenal. You're spending 10 bucks and getting a lead. So I just don't think there's a too low of a budget. You can spend up to $5 per day is the minimum. On Facebook ads we currently oh, this is Frankie from North West Raleigh. We currently charge $70 per hour with a base pay of $18 per hour. I have a team member who's been with me for about two years and consistently delivers high efficiency results. I like to raise his base pay to $20 an hour while keeping the base standard base pay at 18. I to raise our hourly rate to customers from 70 to 80. Especially since we're operating at 75% capacity right now and expect to be at full capacity within the next month or two. Awesome. With that in mind, would be a good P4P percentage to offer him on top of the 20% base.

I'm usually not a fan, but let's just say let's. I'm going to go along with the fact that we've already gone through the ramifications of splitting people's different, having different base pays. Assuming you've already thought that through and you want to give them a higher base.

The reason I say this because like I would rather go a higher percentage so they make more money but it's more performance based. Also if they're so good, they should be able to perform at a higher level. Also if you raise prices from 70 to $80 per hour, there's $10 per hour base. $10 per hour increase that they're gain 30% of that. That's an extra $3 per hour they're going to be getting there. So I would really focus on the, the, the price increase.

I would focus on.

You know, if, let's assume for a moment you actually want to give someone higher base pay, you can just do it. You can just go into P4P software and change their base pay to 20. And the thing is if they're a high performer, they're not going to actually make any more money because they're already making more than that on pay for performance.

And if they're not, then we have other pricing issues. Right. So I rarely do. I think that raising base pay to a high performer is a good thing because the only time it's ever going to affect them is if they're doing under base pay, which is. Might be the off season. Maybe that's why you're trying to do that. So.

Yeah, like I, I would probably say I would give this person a higher percentage. If you're raising the rate though, you're already giving them a ba. A bump of on P4P. So if you want to do it on top of that. So like you raise your prices, if you raise prices by that, that's basically a 15 price increase. If you raise prices by 15, they're getting a 15 increase on P4P. But if I raise their base pay, it doesn't really do anything because if they're a high performer, they're already making above that. So just be careful, I would say of, of those things, but assuming, assuming all of that, you could do a base pay increase and you could also do a percentage increase. So for example, if Your crew's at 30% and $70 per hour, or sorry, if they're at. If your crew is at 30% and $18 an hour base, you could put this person at $20 per hour and a 33% base. I would just make sure you have something tied around the fact of why they're getting this. Is it because they're nice? Is it because they've been around a long time? Is it because they're a good employee? Like what other ramifications? Because if word gets around that they're getting more, you need to have a reason why and I it to maybe you tie it to tenor. I'm just not a huge fan of this because if they're higher, if they have been around a long time, they're so good they should be able to produce more revenue for the business and therefore have a higher pay. If you're like, well I just want to increase the floor just so they feel better like in terms of their base. Okay, that makes, that makes some sense. But please tie it to something so that when, when word gets around as it inevitably does, you have a reason as to why they have a higher base. Otherwise you're gonna have a very awkward conversation.

Mr. Anonymous, what size business doing simple services recurring reoccurring in profit mode would it take to be able to pay a working GM 70k per per year as well as two overhead positions making at least 50k take home per year? In other words 170k to GM and two overhead positions combined per year? What would top line revenue need to be or how would you one calculate that? Yes, that is the GM plus model. You're going to have a GM and two overhead positions. You're going to do 1.5 million plus. So because you've added $170,000 and that's just in their pay, that's not like the extra overhead of a shop space that's going to be required, an estimated vehicle, etc. That's why I believe if you're going to go over 800,000 and you're going to go with these two overhead positions, you're going to go to 1.5 million plus. So anything above 1.5 and I've seen this model where you have sales, operations, admin overhead positions being able to do around that two to $2.5 million. I've seen that. Especially when they're doing recurring and reoccurring, they can handle that much revenue. Absolutely. It's going to take take you a little bit longer to build. You have a little bit less ability for you to get out of the daily operations simply because you have a bigger organization. It's going to be usually if you're paying someone $70,000 that year, they're not running a $2 million business. So that's the other side of the coin.

So and then same thing with $50,000. People like $50,000. You actually can't pay someone's salary $50,000 a year. Now it's 60,000 in my state, 70,000. So like be careful with that. But assuming you're paying them hourly and you're paying them, you know, 25 bucks an hour, which is going to be tough to get to other overhead positions that are willing to do that at a management level. But this is the GM plus model. This is the GM plus model. I, I, I'm just put the reason I'm putting like cautionary notes around this. I see so many people go for this and burn out in the extra three years it's required to go from the 800,000 level to the 1.5. So I think most time when people are like I'm going to go for it, I'm like what if you just raise prices and stay to 800,000 and six, seven employees, five trucks, like what if would you make more money doing that versus trying to go get these other positions, Opening yourself up to key man risk.

That'S my concern. And then having a good GM, they're not gonna stick around for 70, but let's call them 120 at a 2 million dollar business. Do I make more money at 800,000 if I just make them all working? GM, raise prices, don't do any marketing and don't have an. Have like an office, etc? I think so based on everything I've seen. So.

Do as I do. And that's what I say. Like Bellingham shop is coming, is going to be right at this level, right above 800,000, 900,000 maybe, because the price increases. I think six trucks, maybe seven. I think seven, eight employees tops. My Mount Vernon location, I think has four or five trucks and has like four or five employees will do 700,000. Like it's just a better business to run if you're trying to run a business that doesn't need you all the time. And so.

Yeah, I just, I just want you to make as much money as possible. And I consistently see people go from 800,000 and then they have three more years of extreme pain getting to just growth, growth mode, I should say growth mode. But growth creates chaos and creates cash crunches. And so it's a lot of pain. Another three years of pain and then they get there and it's like, ugh, maybe if I didn't have to pay overhead for 170 grand of wages. Like 170 grand of wages. If you're at a 20% margin, just run the math. Like that's 500, that's 5. That's $750,000. Look at that, folks. That's the $750,000 that is required to go from 800,000 to $1.5 million. There's that profit gap there because you have to go get those admin people, you have to go get those overhead staff, you have to get the shop space and extra overhead required to get to 1.5. That's why million is really weak. You got to get. Once you pass the 800,000 level and the $800,000 level, yes, it absolutely is attributed to your hourly rate. Like if you have a $70 per hour rate versus a $100 an hour rate, very different. That's why the Bellingham shop, as it's been in business for so long and now it's up, up against $100 per hour, is probably going to be above 800,000. Like 850, 900, I'm going to guess this year maybe a little bit even more even, but because they keep raising prices. So yes, that, that number is relatively hypothetical, but in really what you're looking at is six to eight employees tops. Like the number of people that one person can manage that, they can also then be in the field during the off season. I don't need a big shop space, et cetera. So. All right, everyone. I hope you have a fantastic Tuesday. Today was the first day of training, the last training before the spring rush. Hope you all have a fantastic evening and we'll see you tomorrow. Take care.